Tales of Brannhår in
Niðavellir
Where do Vikings go when they die ? Valhalla or Hel...or is that just Christian propaganda?
Some scholars of the old Norse religions think that it was more a matter of individual choice. What's it to be? Endless Rugby club dinners or wall to wall repeats of Eastenders. Maybe you'd prefer something different...
Welcome to Niðavellir!
“Niðavellir : pronounced Ni-tha-vell -eer) was one of the nine worlds in Norse mythology. It is the realm of the dwarves. In mythical times they grew tired of their noisy, warlike neighbours: the Norse gods (both sets), the giants and the elves and emigrated.
The land masses are covered with geothermal features; volcanoes, geysers, hot springs, vents etc.and the skies produce an intense aurora during hours of darkness.
Extract:
The dwarf climbed over the rubble. As always he was looking for metal or its traces. He and his wife had wintered in the high mountains and had come down when the spring thaw had started. The winter had been hard and they had expended most of their energies just keeping alive. The area had been abandoned by free-living dwarves; most people had congregated in the dwarf village before the true winter had set in.
His wife was about twenty yards behind him at the edge of the lake harvesting Vatnisbrowth and she called him over, “Look here, there’s something in the water.”
He went over to her and saw a shape floating just below the surface of the lake. He waded in and pulled the thing to shore. It was the size of a child and it looked like a Lorelei or possibly an undine. Her form was too slight to be a dwarf. She was naked and appeared uninjured but she wasn’t breathing. Her red-gold hair streamed behind her in the water but fell into a tangled wet rope as he lifted her clear. He laid her on the bank. His wife said, “She’s got something around her neck. It’s gold.”
The dwarf smiled, gold was always welcome. The festival of Kraftmoot was in a few weeks and he hadn’t had time to create anything for this year’s event; he wondered if it would be worth re-working. The fine chain ended in a talisman; a gold disc holding a deep red gem. He examined it, the chain was too fine for it to be common work but he frowned in distaste as he saw that the setting and talisman had been cast. He thought that he might be able to do something with it. Of course he’d have to enter it in a rework category rather than as an original but it would be better than nothing. The gold setting dangled from the dwarf’s hand by its chain and the red gem seemed to pulse in the bright sunlight.
Since the creature was clearly a water spirit he was about to push the body back into the lake to be claimed by the other water spirits when he noticed something. Her body was warm even though she must have been in the freezing water for a long time.
“We will take her back to the cave and see what can be done,” he said.
His wife nodded in agreement; “We must preserve life; it is our duty to the world.”
